A timeless classic for the Christmas season

The movie "Mary Poppins" was on ABC family channel tonight. My husband knows this is one of my all time favorite movies, so he told me the time and channel before it started. I got busy playing on the computer and doing laundry and forgot all about it until about the last 5 minutes of the movie. So I turned on the last 5 minutes.

I think this movie is such a timeless classic because of the message it portrays. Not of a nanny who whips two bratty children into shape, but that the presence of an earthly father figure is important to the family dynamic. God designed the family unit to be just that a unit~ a mother, a father and the children. I understand that things happen in life to rip that unit apart, but just watch the end of the movie. The family is going to the park together to fly a kite. And the dad gets it! He realizes that it is important to the children to spend time being with them. Not to take them to the park so they can do it on their own, but to be an active participant involved in their lives. And Mary Poppins and her umbrella (the talking parrot head) even have that conversation. The bird says something about the children going off with their father and not saying goodbye and Mary says, "Just as it should be."

Can I just tell you how blessed my girls and I are that we have an active, participating daddy in our lives? He is so good with our girls. He'll take them to the library to pick out books and videos. Then come home and read to them or sit down and snuggle as they watch a video they brought home. He'll take them to the park or start a tickle fest with them. Sometimes all he has to do is be his usual goofball self and they'll just crack up at him. And I don't know about you, but there is nothing that puts a smile in my heart more than listening to a child's sincere, belly busting laugh, the kind that come up all the way from the toes.

So, it is the Christmas season. We celebrate Jesus Christ coming to earth to be fully man, yet fully God. What an awesome gift God gave us in his only son Jesus Christ. I bet Joseph had moments like those above in teaching Jesus how to be a carpenter. What an awesome gift God gave me when he blessed me with the perfect husband for me and 2 beautiful daughters for my husband and I to parent. He chose us to be their parents. May you see the wonders and gifts all around you this Christmas season.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

Happy Father's day to my wonderful husband & all of the fathers, step-fathers & other substitute fathers out there. My husband had a wonderful day/weekend I do believe. Yesterday they had the "Gearfest" at our church. This is the 2nd annual event, where dads, kids & anyone can come in, touch, climb on, in, push buttons, sirens, whatever there is to do on "big rigs." Basically boys toys. Anything you could imagine, from police cars, to fire trucks, to back hoes, motorcycles, etc. was there. Today he rode the motorcycle to church, then went for a nice long ride with a couple of his male friends. Came home & caught the tail end of our friend's b-day party. They had a bounce house, so he played in there with the girls. We had more than enough food at the party, so I ordered him Chinese. Now he's relaxing on the couch. Honey, I hope your father's day was as wonderful as my mother's day!

**Update on my nephew-
My s-i-l & he are going to Pittsburgh, PA tomorrow for a consultation on Tu. am. Then on Fri. the 20th he gets his port put in.

Happy birthday to my brother-in-law, Brian, tomorrow, June 16th.

Busy week coming up.

Going to go relax with the husband now, even though the house looks like a tornado went through it. :)
God Bless, -Gail

blessings & a prayer request

My daughters are three now. WOW!!!! I'm not sure where the last 3 years went, but they went somewhere! The first couple of years were a blur. Now I'm starting to enjoy them. Have the temper tantrums started? OH YEAH!!!! They actually started a few months ago, but seem to have been getting worse of late.(is that redundant?)
I have to back up. I'm an addict, a blog addict that is. I may have previously mentioned this in another post.(I'm too lazy to go back & look) I read many blogs, most of them other Christians, but not all of them. There is one where a mom lost her 4 year old son to cancer this past January. There are a couple of people who are dealing with cancer now or have an infant they were told to abort, because he wouldn't live more than a couple of hours(btw, he's 2 mo. old now) or an infant who died just hours after being born. MOST of the blogs I read though are for fun, make me laugh & uplift me. But let me tell you what I've learned. That somewhere in this crazy place we call the world, blog-o-land, some one may be having a worse day(week, month, year, life) than me; but they are still muddling through. Through whatever their trials & tribulations may be they are still praising Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the risen one. They know that he is their rock & their strength; doesn't make the particular situation any easier, just able to bear it all up.
So let me get back to my title: blessings! I have come to realize that when my daughters aren't throwing their tantrums they are an absolute wonderful blessing. (The picture btw is their 2 1/2 yr pic/Christmas pic. I'm not especially computer savvy, so while their 3 yr pic is somewhere on the computer I couldn't find it. I will either edit this post & change the pic or you can pop over to the hubby's blog to see my darlings. Okay, I tried adding his link, but with no luck so I'll just type out the address: lifeofpictures.blogspot.com) I love hearing them talk, either to me or to each other or their friends.(or even their baby dolls or stuffed animals) One of my BFF's who'll remain nameless has told me she loves to smell her children after they come in from outside on a spring day. I love to smell my children just about any time. One of my favorite times to do this is when I wake them up in the middle of the night to go potty. They are (marginally)still small enough that I pick them up out of bed & carry them into the bathroom, then carry them back to bed. I kiss on them, tell them how beautiful they are, how much I love them & sniff the heck out of them. Some days I could just eat them alive. (good thing I'm not a cannibal) :)
So all of this brings me to the second part of my title: a prayer request.
My nephew, AJ, is 24, serving our country in the military, would like to make a lifelong career out of it, but was just diagnosed with colon cancer. This comes on the tail of the 1st anniversary of my mother's death. Right now the docs have told him the prognosis is good, but it will be a long road ahead of him.
I'm not one to post prayer requests on here at least until now; but while I haven't always been the best aunt in the world I love my nephew. Above is a pic of AJ holding his nephew(my great nephew). This is from 2005, but it is the most recent pic I have of him. I guess my prayer request is for peace for the family & proper treatment/diagnosis of his illness. Thanks!

Lord, whatever things this life may bring my way, help me to count it all joy. Help me to remember you know the beginning from the end & you knew ALL of my circumstances before they came to pass. May I be able to be like Job who said, "As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth." Job 19:25 and my paraphrase of Job 1:21 "yet will I praise him."

Hope you have a blessed rest of the week. -Gail

Thankful

Well, it has been 3 1/2 years of marriage, along with a set of twins. Can I just tell you how thankful I am to my Lord Jesus Christ? He is wonderfully awesome! He gave me this man to be my husband and we have been learning to dance the marriage/family dance. We are still learning all the steps, but of late it has been good. All I can say is thank you God, for being an awesome God & working in both of our lives.
Both of us came from broken families. We both brought our share of baggage into the marriage(of course, who doesn't?), and we are still dealing with that.
But he has been wonderful as of late. In the past we have had our moments. Tonite after dinner he cleaned up the kitchen & loaded the dishwasher for me as I got the girls ready for bed. I didn't realize quite how much he'd done until we came home from our bible study group. Which btw has been good too. We are currently doing the Truth project from Focus on the Family. One of the things the video talked about tonite was submission. God the Son, a.k.a Jesus Christ, submitted to God the Father. So why does society make marriage/submission seem like such a dirty & bad word? i.e. wives submit to your husbands.
So on the way home I asked one of those tough questions that you don't always want to hear the answer to, but sometimes you just need to find out. It was good, he sees improvement in our relationship as well. And no it wasn't on submission.
Thank you, Bill for being an awesome father to our girls & being willing to work on you & us & our relationship.
Thank you Lord for giving me Bill, & two beautiful daughters. Help me to always treasure each one of them for the unique, individual, beautiful creations you made them to be.

Duly chastised & other things

Well, I wasn't really "chastised" only reminded that it had been several weeks since I posted anything new. Yes, I've been slacking. I started a post a couple weeks ago, tried to save it as a draft & lost it. So I will now try to recap what I wrote & add more. Needless to say this may be a lengthy post/ramble.

July 14th. Here in RI we have a thing in downtown Providence called "waterfire." What this is are pods in the water & volunteers go along load them up with wood & then go back & light them on fire. All the while there is music playing in the background. This apparently started in 1994, but I don't think it gained popularity until probably 2000. Well, having been in RI for 11 years now, I had never seen it, nor had my husband who is a RI native. So we decided to check it out(obviously on 7/14). Loaded up the bicycles & downtown Providence we went. The bikes were a mistake & we got there a little later than we had planned on. It was definitely interesting, but I don't think it is all the hype they have made it out to be. Would I do it again? Yeah, probably on foot. But it isn't like it is going to become a regular outing with us.

The girls have been doing pretty well with the potty & have even started pooping in it. We did have a week or so where it seemed we were in a bit of rebellion, though. We had more accidents than mommy liked & this is when one can truly appreciate hardwood & linoleum floors.

There is a "house contest" going on in RI. For a mere $100.00, 100 word essay & several other "guidelines," you have the chance to win a 4 bed, 1 bath house. Having thrown away $100.00 probably many times over; my husband & I decided to enter. So hopefully, if it is God's will, we will be the proud new owners of a home by the end of the month! My prayer is that God would put exactly the family that needs to be in this home, in it.

The weekend of the 27th of July was a busy weekend for me! Being the birthday & all, as my good friend Dawn (a.k.a. Martha, jr. or Raven)often reminds me it was holy week. Even today, I'm still celebrating!
I went to the Women of Faith conference in Boston on Fri & Sat. & I laughed & I cried. It was a great time. Then Sunday afternoon after church a few of the ladies got together & went up to the Charles river in Boston & went for a "moonlit" canoe ride. Yes, the 29th was a full moon, however due to cloud cover we didn't get to see it until our drive home. We still had a blast though! Thanks Joyce, Jojo & Chris!
Still celebrating in grand fashion the husband has been absolutely awesome this past week! He & the girls got me a spa package for my b-day, so I went & pampered myself on Tue.
Let me just pause here a minute & ask all the parents a question. Do you ever have those days when your children are just being children but they are totally working your last nerve??? Well, Fri. was one of those days for me! The dh came home from helping at sports camp at church, we put the girls down for a nap & I went to pick blueberries in about a bazillion degrees - BY MYSELF! Just me, God & the bushes! It was actually enjoyable & amazing how quickly I was able to pick a good amount!
Then on Sat. some ladies & I went to super suppers, came home, the dh went out, came home, we ate dinner & I went & played cards with some ladies from church. But it's better than that- when I came home from super suppers, dh had fed the girls lunch, ran the dishwasher, emptied it, reloaded the remaining dishes that didn't fit the 1st load, washed the ones that don't fit at all & well, lets just say my kitchen looked pretty nice.

I think I need to go pamper the dh now so will close this post. I will try to be more diligent in posting. Thanks Sandy for the encouragement! :)

Friday the 13th

Well, here it is Friday the 13th. Although many people are superstitious about today, it is actually one of my favorite days. I'm envious of my friends whose birthdays are on the 13th because that means they get to have a Friday the 13th b-day. And no I don't like Friday the 13th movies. In fact if you know me you know that I thought the movie "Sixth Sense" was too scary.

So I was looking & noticed that it has been a week since I blogged, so I thought I'd start with the really fun things the family has been doing this week.
I just started meeting with some friends of mine on Tuesday mornings for a Bible study. They've been meeting for probably close to a year now, so you say why did you just join them? I'll tell you. We are doing an awesome read for anyone who has children; "To Train Up a Child" by Michael & Debi Pearl. It is a bit ouchy, because it is very biblically based. So as you're reading the book & they suggest you should discipline your child this way or that way it is sometimes a bit hard to swallow. Actually the whole premise of the book is in the title. Training your children as opposed to disciplining them.
Thursday we went with our friend Viv to a house on Wallum lake, had some wonderful Christian fellowship & played in the water. The girls absolutely love being in the water. And mom felt like a horrible mom as I forgot to put sunscreen on their faces so they had pink cheeks & noses.
Today, Dad & I packed up the girls, our bicycles & a picnic lunch & went to the East Bay bike path. We had a wonderful time, went to Haines Park for our lunch & then back to the carousel. We rode the carousel a couple of times & then went down the street for some ice cream. Between yesterday & today I've never seen two little girls sooo tired.

Tomorrow promises to be just as exciting. Grammy promised the girls that when mom said they were potty trained we'd all go shopping for new outfits from head to toe. So it has been 5 weeks & we have only had a handful of accidents. All in all they're doing quite well.

Well, enough rambling for now.